(Archived) REQUEST: Word count feature [OUTDATED—IMPLEMENTED]

[Adam1234 0]

I REALLY need this feature for the Mac app. It is the only thing stopping me using Evernote at the moment. It would be VERY useful.

[Metrodon 2,162]

I believe it exists in the windows client and so it is likely that it will eventually make it to the Mac client.

No ETA though

[Metrodon 2,162]

Jeez, the last thing I want as a Mac user is an app built on HTML5 or even worse Java.....

[gtuckerkellogg 33]

Sure, I agree. They (probably including many people at EN) would like to do so, and committed people like dlu, heather, and gbarry are clearly doing their part and more. But as a company, they don't seem to have a system for making this happen.

[gtuckerkellogg 33]

I'm curious to know if Evernote is considering a strategy of developing core UI functionality using HTML5 within a native platform container?

Their technology choice is mostly an internal question for EN. For what it's worth, I share Metrodon's reservations. But platform consistency affects, one way or another, a large portion of EN users. Regardless of their technology choices, I'd like to think that someone at EN had it at the top of their job description to maximize the common feature set of the Mac and Windows platforms. There's just no way to make sense of "full screen thumbnails" getting priority over "printing notes with titles". Some things are going to be platform-specific, like AppleScript and some Windowsy things. But the basic things, like printing notes and editing searches, should just work the same. Platform consistency doesn't have to be EN's #1 priority, but it should be the #1 priority for someone at EN.

[peterfmartin 221]

But those of us waiting for this shouldn't hold our breaths. It's been available on Windows for some time, right? There's no sign yet it's coming to Mac anytime soon.

[jefito 5,586]

Sure, I agree. They (probably including many people at EN) would like to do so, and committed people like dlu, heather, and gbarry are clearly doing their part and more. But as a company, they don't seem to have a system for making this happen.

It doesn't require a "system", it requires corporate will. If the company were to make it a #1 priority, then it would happen. My take is that it's really not as high a priority for Evernote as all that, maybe because of the effort hat it would take to schedule and coordinate releases of the different products in some sort of lockstep. So, important? Yes. Worthy? Sure. A1 top-priority? Probably not. That doesn't mean that other Evernote employees are not committed either; it just means that they're (hopefully) working on what is higher priority for them.

To my mind, what's even better about dlu, heather and Geoff being present here is that they're, well, present here.

[dlu 628]

As more companies support "anything, anywhere" development, this is a growing problem. I'm curious to know if Evernote is considering a strategy of developing core UI functionality using HTML5 within a native platform container? I'm sure there may be some drawbacks to that strategy, but many advantages. Can someone @ Evernote share some of the internal thoughts about this?

We could also build an Adobe Air app... Or just shut down both Mac and Windows and double up (triple up?) on the web client. I think a lot of what we do requires nice, hefty native apps

[dlu 628]

I think lock step is rather descriptive. Ideally, we would be able to move in perfect synchronicity. What it usually means is that we have to hold something else back and just wait until the rest is done.

[Metrodon 2,162]

Why not go the whole hog and invest in Flash? I hear it's the next big thing......(sitting here in my tin foil hat pondering cloud security)

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

EN rarely posts ETAs.

[white.tornado 1]

I need this feature badly too. One wonders, could it be that hard to code this function into the Mac version?

[white.tornado 1]

It is on the roadmap, but if you want it now, here's an AppleScript by our own Brett Kelly: https://gist.github.com/1482299

May I ask whether it is clear how this will look like? It would be great if it would be somewhat robust, that is, not only provide a simple word count per note, but also per selection, per selection of notes, per tag, per notebook, etc. Also, it would be great if word count of note and/or selection would always be visible (e.g. next to date modified).

[Adam1234 0]

But are there any plans to include in the future?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

It may not be that hard. It just may be it's low on the priority list.

[jbenson2 2,138]

You are correct - word count and character count are in Windows (added in Version 4.3.0 in April 2011)

Evernote tries to use similar features in their different versions, so no promises, but it is likely to be in their plans.

[heather 604]

It is on the roadmap, but if you want it now, here's an AppleScript by our own Brett Kelly: https://gist.github.com/1482299

[dlu 628]

Word & Character count is included in the new beta. It'll hit the public versions fairly soon

[gtuckerkellogg 33]

I believe it exists in the windows client and so it is likely that it will eventually make it to the Mac client.

No ETA though

That last part is certainly true (although in this case, happily, its already in the beta!).

But, although I hesitate to disagree with Metrodon, I think the first statement is somewhat wishful. EN has been clear that they have separate development teams and cycles for different platforms. Features missing in one platform, such as printing notes with titles, can go for a long while (in that case, years) without any indication EN has committed to harmonizing them. I'm not saying the platform teams don't talk to each other. They clearly do, and good ideas in one platform wind up in others. Having separate dev teams probably helps EN develop faster than they would otherwise. But there's no indication at all that there is anyone responsible for keeping a list of platform-specific versus cross-platform features, and using it to maximize cross-platform consistency.

[dlu 628]

But, although I hesitate to disagree with Metrodon, I think the first statement is somewhat wishful.

I think the key words from Metrodon were "it is likely it will eventually make it to the Mac client"

I've been trying to wrangle in Mac and Windows into some consistency, but there will always be a lot of catching up.

[gtuckerkellogg 33]

Thanks, dlu

[floid 8]

EN has been clear that they have separate development teams and cycles for different platforms.

As more companies support "anything, anywhere" development, this is a growing problem. I'm curious to know if Evernote is considering a strategy of developing core UI functionality using HTML5 within a native platform container? I'm sure there may be some drawbacks to that strategy, but many advantages. Can someone @ Evernote share some of the internal thoughts about this?

[Metrodon 2,162]

It's a stated aim that Dlu and Heather and others have said regularly on here - there is no timescale on it and no promises but it seems to me that it is one of the things that they'd like to do. do